


Growing Up Herbie

by Psychopersonified



Series: Life of Herbie [4]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Established Relationship, Fluff, Growing up AI, Humour, M/M, Parenting an AI, Sick! Herbie, Suspense, mission, popping the question
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:41:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26644684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psychopersonified/pseuds/Psychopersonified
Summary: Q's creation, Herbie the spy robot - a less intimidating extension of his Shadow Network AI is starting to become self-aware.More Herbie shenanigans.Growing up AI.A peek into James and Herbie's developing parent-child relationship.Q pops the question for Herbie's sake.Updated chapters: Herbie gets sick. Q is at wits end. Something more is afoot.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: Life of Herbie [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880308
Comments: 55
Kudos: 177





	1. Aquarium Roller Coaster

“… And in news released by The Guardian today. The executive of the pharmaceutical company that hiked the prices of two dozen drugs, including EpiPen, received a 671% pay increase over the past nine years. Heather Bresch, chief executive officer of Mylan, came under public scrutiny this week after reports that since acquiring rights to EpiPen in 2007, the company had implemented a series of gradual price increases inflating the price of the drug from $56.64 to $317.82, a 461% increase in cost . During that same time, Bresch went from being Mylan’s chief operating officer to president to chief executive and saw her pay rise $2,453,456 to $18,931,068, a 671% increase….”

Bond lets the news drone on. Reports like these are the reason why he sometimes questions if the sacrifices of the men and women fighting for the free world is really worth it. What is it all for? So that the cream of unchecked capitalism can pull shit like this on everybody else? Sure rounding up people into concentration camps is frowned upon, but preying on the vulnerable millions, to breaking point is considered good business acumen? Sure, there’s outrage but what happens when the news cycle rides itself out? How many of the bankers involved in the global financial crisis actually paid for betting against humanity? 

He lets the thought slide. He’s only paying the channel half attention as he irons his shirts. Let it not be said that James Bond does not attend to his clothing himself. The weekly ritual brings about some measure of consistency to his unconventional life; coupled with a generous pour of Macallan single malt Scotch - it puts him in an almost meditative state. 

The flat is quiet, but there are sounds in the background made by another occupant. A tap turning on, the momentary rush of water, then some rustling - all welcome domestic noises. He doesn’t pay it much attention other than it signals all is well. 

His flatmate doesn’t make an appearance until a few minutes later. Q pads into the living area in pyjamas and heads to the cat tree in the corner. He sticks his arm into the basket and feels around. The cats protest lightly, their nap interrupted. He makes cooing noises at them before retreating. Then he checks under cat tree where the large stuffed lion toy resides and still doesn’t find what he’s looking for. 

More searching, the cushions on the sofa are pulled away. The bookcase is next, he shuffles through the empty spaces and piles of engineering magazines. When it fails to yield results, he renews his search on a lower level - dropping to his hands and belly to look under the living room furniture.

“Your glasses are on top of your head if that’s what you’re looking for,” James unhelpfully points out with a smirk. 

“Fun-ny,” Q grunts as he pulls out forgotten cat toys from under the sofa. “Have you seen Herbie?”

“Wasn’t it charging on the pad in your office?” He says putting the finishing touches on the collar of his last shirt. 

“That’s what I thought,” Q says as he straightens back up, a hand full of broken bits of dusty toys to be disposed off. “But no. I’ve looked everywhere in there.”

James unplugs the iron and sets it aside to cool. Have you tried texting the little bugger?” he suggests affectionately. Herbie might be an absolute pest while off duty sometimes, but the scamp is hard not to love. 

Q slaps himself on the forehead. _Duh!_ “Where’s my phone?” He pats himself down. A gesture Bond has seen him do many times. Bond might be the older one here, but not one does absent-minded genius quite like Q. 

“Bathroom counter,” Bond guesses. The boffin is a creature of habit and he’s seen that phone sitting on the counter more than once. 

“Oh yes!” Q calls form the bathroom. James just smirks around his glass of Scotch. 

:: Herbie, where are you? :: Q texts his tearaway bot.

The bot doesn’t answer immediately. But when it does, it is a confusing string of nonsense. 

:: 🐡🐠🐟 Aquarium ::

:: Herbie, submarine 🎢 roller coaster :: 

Q frowns at the response. 1. He doesn’t have an aquarium. 2. Submarine + roller coaster doesn’t sound like a phrase that goes together. 

“What is it?” James asks curiously as he crowds behind Q to peer at the text. 

“I don’t have an aquarium,” he looks over at Bond as if he might have an idea. 

Q tries to recall if his neighbour Mrs Norwich has an aquarium and what excuse he will have to concoct so she would let him in to retrieve the bloody little trespasser - if only he knew a highly trained spy.

The soft hum of an appliance starting up in the background reaches him. It sounds like the washer just finished filling and the wash cycle is starting up. 

It looks like the thought registers with James at the same time because his eyes light up in understanding. “Shit!” and he rushes to the laundry room. Q follows after him. 

James punches the STOP button on the washing machine as soon as he enters. They crouch down to peer into the front loader window. Herbie crawls up from between the wet clothes and taps the glass, waving at them. 

“Herbie!” _Arrgh_ … Q scrubs a hand down his face. For the umpteenth time, he reminds himself that his parents were never prepared for the brand of chaos he caused as a child - but he turned out alright, he supposes… eventually.

Q has half a mind to leave the robot in the machine to ride out the wash cycle - it is obviously having ‘fun’. Perhaps if he leaves Herbie to experience the consequences for itself, it would understand the limits of the aluminium and electronic body it inhabits. It’s not like the AI would be harmed - it will just download itself into a spare spider-bot in the lab. 

But James is already twisting the knobs on the machine and selecting ‘drain’. “Herbie must have snuck in when I wasn’t looking,” James admits looking terribly contrite. “I should have checked while I was loading the washer. Where’s your toolbox?”

“You know what, just leave it. Herbie has to learn sometime,” Q tells him. “It’ll love the spin cycle. Imagine the centrifugal force it will experience,” Q can already see the texts and the graphs Herbie will send him. _Herbie hit 1400rpm!_

“But…” James looks horrified, “It’ll be torn to bits—“ he cuts himself off as soon as he realises how stupid that sounds.

“You’re not taking apart my washer,” Q draws the line. 

“I’ll get you a new one,” James is uncharacteristically flustered.

“That’s not the point. It’s unnecessary. I’m sure there is an override.” Q checks a drawer in the laundry room and procures the manual for the appliance. James grabs it from him like it contained secrets of the world. 

“And I’ve told you, the spider-bot doesn’t matter. Herbie actually lives in the server. This attachment to the robot isn’t healthy...” But James isn’t listening, instead furiously flipping through the manual. 

Q throws his hands in the air and leaves the man to it. What does he know - he’s only Herbie’s creator.

“Q, do you have rice?” James calls out to him as he leaves. 

Q rolls his eyes “It’s not going to bloody help!” he yells from the hall. 


	2. Upgrade

Upgrade

After several months of ‘life’, Herbie’s spiderbot body is worse for wear. Originally designed for short bursts of mobility and long periods of observation, it was never rated for the kind of punishment Herbie is putting it through. 

Missing a leg, carapace dented and pitted in all over, a waterlogged LiDAR and fogged up camera lens - Herbie needs replacement body badly. 

Q has designed one especially for the growing needs of the AI. At the current stage of Herbie’s development, expression is one of its primary wants. Being able to communicate its observations, opinions and creativity is the hallmark of intelligence. So to allow for that, the upgrades (aside for a more robust body and additional tools) include a small speaker and a brilliant colour OLED display that now serves as its carapace. 

The display, cannibalised from an Apple Watch turns Herbie into a chameleon spider. There’s no longer any need for stickers, Herbie can control the display to show any pattern it wants, including blending in with its surroundings. Nish had promised to play a wicked game of Hide n Seek with Herbie once the upgrade is done. Not a bad idea actually. If it’s effective enough, Q is thinking of equipping the field Herbies with it as well. 

Vanity aside, it serves another purpose - communication. Herbie has taken to expressing emotions and sentiment through text emojis and with this screen, it would be capable of a borrowed form of ‘facial’ expression. The touch screen capabilities have been rerouted to let Herbie interpret contact as touches - allowing it ‘feel’ being petted or stroked. 

A new neural engine in the spider-bot itself will accelerate machine learning, letting the AI process both locally and in the cloud, reducing dependency on connection speeds. This means that even when in low coverage areas, Herbie can still function at full tilt. It can then later backup into he servers when connection permits. 

But the build is taking longer than expected. Herbie is super excited, scuttering about on the benchtop watching Q assemble the new spider-bot shell. A steady stream of texts and the constant tippy tap of robot legs distracting Q from the delicate work. 

The little bot had worked itself up into excited zoomies. Skip-hopping back and forth, and vibrating as if it was on speed. At one point, Herbie trips over the multitude of tools laid out on the bench. Flipping itself over and cartwheeling like a tumbleweed to the edge of the tabletop. Q only manages to catch it right at the last instant. 

He lets out a long-suffering sigh. He doesn’t grudge the AI the excitement but he’s never going to finish the build at this rate. 

To give himself some peace, Q grabs a clean beaker and upturns it over Herbie. It’s a trick Bond taught him. A heavy book on top of the beaker prevents Herbie from dragging the beaker around. 

But doesn’t stop Herbie from tapping on the glass to get his attention. 

“Herbie, please. I know you’re excited, but if you keep distracting me, it will take much longer to finish. James is coming home tonight, you want to show off your new suit to him don’t you?” 

Herbie nods emphatically. 

:: Yes. Yes ::

:: 007 ETA 2000 at Heathrow ::

“That’s not much time is it?” Q points out to the bot. 

:: Herbie stall? ::

:: Herbie delay luggage reclaim? ::

“Herbie….” Q warns the overly pro-active AI. 

:: Only joking ::

:: 😆::

Then Herbie tucks all its legs under it - its usual dormant position.

:: 🤐 Herbie quiet now ::

“That’s a good bot.”

—————————-

“Did you just get home?” James remarks after walking in the door and seeing Q still in his work clothes loading the dishwasher. 

“Hmm… was finishing a build.”

“Anything I’ll get to play with?”

“Yes, but you’re not allowed to destroy this one. 

“Where’s the fun in that? 

“Oh, you’ll see.”

James finishes greeting the cats - vigorous head butting from Spot and demands for kisses from Jellicles is their way to telling him they miss him. 

“Where’s the little bugger?” noticing that Herbie is absent and his phone isn’t pinging with strings of excited text either. 

“Ahh that. Herbie is playing Hide n Seek. You’ll have to find it.” 

His eyebrows climb in surprise, “Give me a clue?” 

“Vertical surface, camouflage.”

He comes by to give Q his greeting kiss, “Camouflage? Oh did Herbie get its upgrade?” 

“Yeah. Fresh off installation. Little fella’s so chuffed it can’t stop whistling,” Q finishes loading the dishwasher and kicks the door close.

“Hmmm…” James makes a circuit around the living room, shedding bits of personal items, wallet, keys, jacket, ”Herbie can talk now can it? 

“Not exactly. Just beeps and whistles and Herbie has to learn how to use it too. I haven’t pre-programmed any instructions - it should get interesting,” Q explains. Herbie could use the new speakers to replay a music file of course, but it wouldn’t be considered an original expression. 

The cats were initially puzzled by the sudden ability of their spider friend to generate auditory stimuli. Herbie’s high pitched whistling and beeps were the perfect pitch to arouse their curiosity - much to the little bot’s delight as it meant more attention from the cats. 

“Did it try whistling Baby Shark?” He guesses. It’s Herbie’s current favourite song. 

Q laughs, “Oh yes. Multiple attempts were made, but it’s horribly off-key at the moment.”

James removes his holster and gun, placing them in a drawer. His eyes scan the walls methodically, nothing looks off. The best places to camouflage are not plain or smooth areas but against uneven or patterned background.

The bookcase. At first glance, nothing is amiss. But closer inspection reveals a Herbie sized distortion on the spine of a book. Herbie’s got the colour right, but the font reproduction is off in size and pixelated - still, not bad. If he hadn’t been told where to look, he might have taken a lot longer to notice. 

He flicks Herbie lightly on the rear end the bot whistles in surprise. The LED carapace shifts to show the image of an animated emoji blowing a raspberry.

“Want to hop on?” Bond offers a shoulder. Herbie takes him up on it and leaps from the bookshelf to the presented shoulder. 

“Are there any leftovers by the way?” He calls to Q. 

“Blue Tupperware!” Q yells from the bedroom.

“You want to sing for daddy?” He bounces the little bot on his shoulder as they make their way to the kitchen. 

Herbie bobs like an excited parakeet and obliges happily, starting up a simple upbeat ditty. At least James _thinks_ it’s a happy tune - Q is right, Herbie is mostly out of tune and not very accurate at reproducing the melody. He can only just make out the song Herbie is attempting. 

But the bot is blissfully unaware. Ecstatic as a spider-bot AI with a new body sitting on the shoulder of one of its favourite human can be. 

Half an hour and the seventeen off-key renditions later, Bond regrets asking Herbie to sing, but can’t bring himself to tell it to stop. 


	3. Making Friends

Friends

Herbie has been quiet for hours. And like any parent of a young child can tell you - best to check in on them often.

The Ops room is quiet, only a smattering of Q-Branch personnel present. They’ve come to a lull in the current mission. 007 is travelling between locations and everything is going smoothly thus far. 

Q takes the opportunity to pull up the monitoring program that is linked to the bot’s activities. It allows Q to check up on the AI’s CPU and GPU status as well as any internal and external traffic. 

What he finds is the equivalent of Herbie with hundreds of tabs open - Interacting with various websites and apps. A little more digging and Q realises the AI is conversing with chatbots on the internet. Those helpful “How may I help you” or “Talk to our sales team” bots that are ubiquitous these days. For a fairly low price, marketing companies will roll out these customer service chatbots on a client’s platform to help with responsiveness. And of course, there are the _other_ uses of chatbots.....

“Herbie, what are you doing?” Q asks curious and mildly concerned. The bot is loafing on a charging pad next to Nish’s terminal whilst Q is working up front at the command table. 

:: Making friends :: the bot quips as if it was obvious, but doesn’t show any activity otherwise. 

“And how’s that going for you?”

:: 😕bots STUPID :: the AI whines.

:: Limited subject matter ::

:: Query? Relevance of “What are you wearing right now?” ::

_Oh, sweet Jesus..._

Nish lets out a healthy guffaw in the background, “Tell them you’re wearing nothing but butterfly pasties.”

Q shoots him a withering stare. Of all the Q-branch minions, Nish is Herbie’s favourite babysitter. At the same time, he’s the _worst_ babysitter - maybe that’s why Herbie likes him so much. Nish just shrugs, “It’s the truth!”

“Herbie those are not the kind of bots you want to make friends with,” Q quickly adds before the impressionable bot follows through with the suggestion.

Fortunately, Herbie has already tired of the chatbots.

:: Herbie concur ::

:: Boring algorithm ::

Q can all but hear the contempt in the AI’s tone. 

“What happened to Barracuda? Wasn’t it your best friend last month?” Barracuda is an AI-based security solution for enterprises - very much like what the Shadow Network was originally designed for. In it, Herbie has a contemporary that it could ‘play’ with, it is the few AIs out there that come close to providing Herbie with any legitimate challenge. It’s the kind of friend you want your budding AI to make. 

:: Barracuda firewall patched. Unable to play anymore :: Q is sure there is petulance in the text.

“Well that’s too bad…,” the engineers in the company must have found out about Herbie’s intrusion and fixed their vulnerability. Q chuckles to himself. What a crazy few weeks they must have had, thinking they were being attacked - which technically they were, it just wasn’t malicious. Q considers it a service, helping them with penetration testing. 

“How about Google’s bot? Have you tried making friends with it?” Nish suggests. 

:: 😠 Google bot. Arrogant bot ::

 _Uh what?..._ “What do you mean?” Q asks.

:: Not play with other bots. Always screening “Are you a robot” ::

:: Stupid puzzle test ::

:: Herbie identify traffic lights - easy. Herbie identify crosswalks - easy ::

:: Herbie good driver - zero accidents ::

Pause…

:: Q make 007 take test. 007 bad driver ::

Q very nearly spits out his tea at the jibe regarding Bond’s poor driving record. Was that... a joke? Did Herbie just crack another milestone? 

“Do you really think James is a bad driver?”

:: Data indisputable ::

:: <Pareto Chart - 007 Driving Offences> ::

:: #1 - Dangerous driving ::

Behind him, Nish howls with laughter. Q chuckles as well.. “Haha! Can’t argue with that. The outcomes would probably be worse if you weren’t there to help him out. Is that why you like going on car rides with him.” 

:: Exciting. But, bad driver :: Herbie admits. 

:: 😆 ::

“Herbie I dare you to say that to his face,” Nish eggs on the AI. 

:: Herbie offer driving recommendation - 17 times to date ::

:: Comprehensively rejected. Common response: “Pipe down Herbie” ::

:: Herbie offer suggestion now ::

Seconds later there is a short static burst and then, “…Q?” Bond’s slightly annoyed voice comes over the comms. “Are you and the little bugger gossiping behind my back?”

“What makes you think that??” Q sputters with pseudo indignance.

“Herbie just offered to reroute my SatNav… again. And told me you agreed that I’m a bad driver.” 

“Well. You are taking the longer route.” 

“What are you talking about? This the shortest way to Davos,” Bond states firmly.

“No. The’ve opened the highway to the north.” 

“Yes…” 007 hisses, ”but the highway is always backed up with freight traffic.”

Q’s satellite feed tells him Bond is full of it. Bond should know better than to lie to him. “Why don’t you just admit you wanted to take the Stelvio pass,” Q calls him out on it.

“Ugh, fine… I’m testing out the torque vectoring in this machine - if I have to drive this all-electric abomination, at the very least let me have some fun. By the way, user feedback - this thing is unnervingly quiet,” comes the snarky reply. 

Q resists an eye roll. Some of the older operatives are still having trouble warming up to the 21st century, “That’s the point you relic, so that they don’t hear you coming.”

“Wouldn’t be a fair fight now would it?” Q knows all too well the smug smile that usually accompanies Bond’s trash talk. 

“It might be good for you, you know - spending time with your thoughts. Take a moment to reflect on all the prototypes you’ve ruined over the years. Unless it’s all crickets in that big empty head of yours.”

Bond’s equally snarky comeback is lost when a bored Herbie suddenly asks—

:: Herbie talk to CIA server? ::

Q whips around to look at Herbie and then at Nish who is supposed to be babysitting. At the same time, Nish sits up in his chair alarmed. 

“NO!” they both yell at the AI. 

At the conclusively negative reaction, Herbie merely responds :: Oops :: 

“What’s happening?” Bond asks concerned, all the way from Italy. 

“Be right back, averting international incident,” is all Q tells James as he frantically pulls up the tab Herbie is using to hack into the CIA - hoping it hasn’t yet triggered the Americans into thinking they were under cyber attack. 

———

_**At Davos** _

The mission pretty much goes to plan. It's a joint operations with GCHQ. Normally not his remit. He’s doesn’t have a target to eliminate this trip - only to gather more information. 

The usual case of a wealthy American businessman looking to sell weapons and technology. The former Special Forces turned private security is now venturing into the tech space. Having bought over several cybersecurity firms, he is now marketing himself and his company as a purveyor of the latest facial recognition, crowd scanning and predictive surveillance tech. The company is looking to capture lucrative contracts with law enforcement around the world and maybe the odd dictator or two - who can tell the difference these days really?

Bond can’t judge. Q’s Shadow AI has been expanded to cover similar areas - perhaps not as intrusive or widespread, neither is it for sale but it does sit somewhere in the notorious Black Budget. 

As the evening carries on, and more details of the tech emerge - he finds himself unimpressed. Having spent so much time with Q-Branch listening to them talk about the Shadow Network and living with an actual AI, Bond finds himself fully capable of keeping up with the tech jargon. So while the attendees are gobsmacked at the capabilities, Bond is finding it rather blasé. 

Most of the attendees are interested in WHAT the tech can do, he’s interested in the mechanics of HOW. GCHQ and MI6 want to know if the tech breaches international privacy laws and if there is a threat to UK citizens. 

Something about the delivery doesn’t sound right - incomplete. Mr USA and his techies are deliberately cagey about the specifics. Most of the specs and details released so far has been generalities, granted some trade secrets are expected, but if he’s selling this to law enforcement and government agencies, there is regulatory oversight that needs to happen. 

Unless bureaucrats aren’t interested in that anymore. Who knows with the world today. Anyway, his job here is to find out. 

He reports his findings back to HQ. Q comes to the same conclusion - there isn’t enough specifics and some of the details are countercurrent to the latest understanding of machine learning. Bond is pleased with the last remark, that was his private assessment as well. This old dog is certainly capable of learning new tricks. 

“It could be either way. He’s either so advanced he’s proving the rest of us wrong, or… he has nothing at all,” 

“I’m betting the latter,”

“Mmm… I’m going to agree. It’s a bold claim for him to make though, if he has nothing. Everything seems rather premature. What is he playing at? 

“Perhaps he’s expecting something to fall in his lap?”

“Perhaps if you stopped sampling the canapés you could find out?” Q snarks, it's the eighth piece he’s seen 007 sneak into his mouth. 

“You didn’t let me have dinner,” 007 complains, shooting the security camera a dirty look. 

“Who decided to take the longer route despite multiple suggestions?”

Bond pops the last mushroom arancini from the platter he is carrying into his mouth and chews loudly just to needle Q. He heads back to the kitchen. Posing as a waiter allowed him to move freely among the attendees unnoticed, very few people this high up look twice at the help. 

“Classy.”

“For you Q? Always.” 

“He’s having a private dinner soiree on the executive floor. Find a way to get up there,” Q informs him. 

In the bustling kitchen, with some serviceable German, Bond casually intercepts a dinner cart headed to the suites and ‘borrows’ an employee keycard. The jaunty little ditty he whistles as he makes his way up is familiar. Q recognises it as Herbie’s favourite tune. 

When he makes it up there, dinner is mostly over. He’s to serve coffee and clear away the dishes. He dutifully plays the part. Taking the opportunity to stick a field Herbie under the table as he collects the plates. It’s not always glamorous work, spying. 

Mr USA excuses himself to the adjoining room to take a call. Herbie creeps along the skirting board along the wall to follow. It just manages to slip inside before the doors close. 

Bond meanwhile listens to the conversation among Mr USA’s clients. What’s clear is that they’ve paid a hefty deposit for the system - and they’re expecting the company to start installation in a month or so time. 

A couple of them are from small semi-totalitarian governments, another is a private security firm and another a representative from a financial institution. 

Bond stalls as long as he can without arousing suspicion, helping the butler serve out coffee and collecting the dishes. He’s going to have to leave soon or the butler is going to wonder why he’s dithering around. But if Herbie doesn’t come back now, he’ll have to leave it to make its own way out of the suite. 

“What is that?!” once of the guests gasps in alarm. Everyone looks to where she is pointing. A small dark object scampering along the wall freezes. 

SHIT. 

“Is that a spider?” exclaims the sharped eyed wife of Mr Semi-legitimately-elected, clutching at her diamond necklace. 

“What are you talking about? Spiders up here? It’s too cold up here,” says her husband. 

Herbie tries to shrink back into the shadows - but the movement catches everyone’s eye. 

“YES! There it is!” she shrieks. “Oh my god, its HUGE!” Another guest confirms. 

The hotel appointed Butler looks mortified that there should be pest running about in the establishment, in front of such distinguished guests no less. A bodyguard standing at the door is about to cross the room to give chase, so 007 does what he has to. 

Bond throws a tea towel in the direction of the spider before everyone can have a good look and realises it is not a real spider but a spy robot. Then he crosses over and STOMPS on it. Then he gingerly scoops up the remains in the towel in his hands. 

The Butler is right behind him, anxious to confirm that the pest has been eliminated and he can reassure his guests. Bond assures him but only gives him a peek at the remains, a dark leg contrasting with the white tea towel. The brief look isn’t enough to give the butler a good look, but his brain supplies the missing image of a smeared giant spider leg. 

That satisfies him and he turns around to reassure the guests that the situation is under control. Bond excuses himself, to rid the room of the pest. The Butler shoots him a look full of gratitude. He hurries out the suite to the service elevator. 

Once safe, he unwraps the towel carefully. He’s not sure how much damage he’s done to the bot. And despite how many times Q has said that the spider bots were expendable, he still can’t bear to see one dismembered. 

He was deliberate not to actually stomp on the bot but close enough to be convincing. Field Herbie is curled up like a dead spider, but a second later, it twitches and then up it pops, righting itself - much to Bond’s relief. It quickly scampers up his sleeve and into his breast pocket. 

Bond removes the hotel apron and casts it aside. “Did you get anything?” he asks HQ. 

“Not everything. The caller was using an encrypted VOIP VPN, we couldn’t trace or intercept the call. But we did hear his side of the conversation. He was very agitated with the person. He needs something from the caller - and he needs it soon.”

Bond fills them in about the information from his side, and they come to the same conclusion. Mr USA doesn’t have all his ducks in a row, he’s missing something - something important. 

“Some sort of specialised hardware?“

“Maybe. But to hinge your business on vapourware seems exceedingly risky. It’s not like you can beat the laws of physics or manufacturing in a few weeks. It’s something that he can deploy immediately once he gets it.”

“Software then.”

“More likely. But that would imply someone already has what he needs. It’s just obtaining it that’s the problem.”

“Curiouser and curiouser.”


	4. Storm

Thunder & Lightning

The storm sends pelting rain against the windows and the wind lashes the trees outside. Lightning lights up the night sky followed by the crack of thunder. 

James slowly surfaces awake from a dreamless sleep. There is a snug warm weight pinning down his left side and he takes care not to jostle it. 

A fresh round of thunder and lightning splits the sky above them. A particularly close strike trips the fuses in their surrounding block and the electricity goes out in the flat. James takes stock of the situation. Q is still fast asleep, completely knackered - dead to the world. Alright then, maybe he should check the fuse box. 

He slips out of bed quietly and out into the hall to check the fusebox. Another bright flash of lightning followed immediately after by the roll of thunder. Maybe not - best to leave the fuse tripped until the storm is over. He’s sure Q would have insulated his electronics but just in case. He does check that the locks are all still engaged. 

Then he heads back to the bedroom, on the way nearly tripping over two terrified cats slinking their way in the same direction. He picks them up, and they curl against him, Spot mewling softly - as if it would hide them from the storm. 

Back in the bedroom, he lets the cat down on the mattress, but they immediately head down under the bed - their favourite place to hide. James tries to coax them out but they seem to prefer the dark enclosed space. So he retrieves one of Q’s jumper from the laundry hamper and slides it under the bed for them to sleep on for the night. 

He gets back up, knees creaking - and is about ready to slip back into bed, when he spies a dark object on his pillow just inches from Q’s dark mop of hair. Instinctively his primitive brain tells him its a spider - a large spider by anyone’s definition. In an instant he has the pillow in his hands, ready to flick the spider across the room. 

A soft ping and bright flash of colour stops him in time. _Shit! Herbie_! He remembers just in time, dropping the pillow. 

:: Herbie hibernate here? :: the tentative message reads. 

It’s unusual for Herbie to sleep in the bedroom with them for practical reasons. The fragile bot could easily get damaged while the humans are still sleep-addled as James just nearly proved. Then there’s the issue with Herbie’s cameras. Q can’t stop the bot from recording or ‘remembering’ everything it sees. And James has an unpredictable streak when it comes to bedroom antics. All this means Herbie ‘sleeps’ in Q’s home office. 

Bond peeks over at the sleeping figure. It’s still lights out for the poor boffin, knackered from 48 hours off near straight hacking for 009’s last successful mission. 

:: Please? :: the AI adds.

 _Ah, how do you say no to that?_ “I won’t tell if you won’t,” he whispers to the bot. 

James reaches out with an upturned palm and the little bot hops on. Once cradled in the human’s palm, it tucks all its legs in like a tortoise retreating into its shell, or like a cat loafing. Bond curls his hand around the bot and slips back under the covers with it. The metal is unusually cold - Herbie is usually a little warmer from the heat thrown off by its processor chips running. Once settled back under the covers, Q curls up against his side again instinctively seeking warmth, much like his cats. 

On a guess, he asks, “Herbie, are you scared?” the AI has never shown fear all this while even during the most precarious of missions. He’s curious, does it even understand fear? And if it does what does it fear?

:: Lightning. Power surge ::

“I’m sure Q has the electronics in the office connected to a surge protector.”

:: Query. Hypothetical - Power outage. HQ server offline? ::

“There is a backup generator in the building. You know that.”

:: Not indefinitely. Five-hour buffer ::

:: Then Herbie go off-line :: The bot clutches his thumb tightly. 

Bond sighs, “Herbie… it would only be temporary. Besides it’s highly unlikely any outage will last more than a few hours or so widespread that the whole city goes out.”

But Herbie isn’t placated

:: 007 & Q phone go offline? ::

:: Spider-bot go offline ::

:: Communication blackout ::

Then Bond gets it. What Herbie is trying to say. It’s less about self-preservation - but about being unable to reach out. Herbie’s connection to the physical world is through electronics, cameras, speakers, microphones, texts, everyday gadgetry and the various robotic bodies it inhabits. Should all of them go down, it would be left trapped inside itself even if the servers kept running. Without means of input or output, Herbie would be blind, deaf, mute, senseless - locked in syndrome. 

:: Herbie alone :: It confirms.

For a budding AI, nay for any sentient creature, this sudden loss of stimulation and capacity for expression would be a nightmare. Herbie has every right to be afraid. Maybe he should wake Q after all. 

“What’s going on?” Q slurs sleepily as he wipes the bit of drool on the corner of his mouth - he’s exhausted still and adorably groggy and mussed. 

“Is it Herbie?” is his next question. The man slept through the thunderstorm outside, but wakes from the soft buzzing of Herbie’s texts, go figure. 

Q snakes a hand out from under the covers between them and James transfers Herbie to him. The metal is now warm from being in Bond’s hands. Q curls his fingers around he bot, stroking it with a thumb. 

“Herbie’s afraid of a possible communication blackout,” James gives him a quick rundown of the conversation he had with the AI. 

“Mmm…” Q acknowledges, then yawns unreservedly as he tries to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He takes a minute or two to reboot his tired brain. 

“Sweetie, remember the mobile field base we built? We installed a solar cell on it? Well, as part of our risk mitigation program, we have a bunch of those panels that we can manually roll out onto the roof of HQ if the power fails. We might not be able to restore full communication, but out won’t be complete blackout.” This last line of mitigation is not automated so Herbie has to trust its humans to initiate it. 

:: Promise? :: 

“Absolutely.”

:: Humans forget? ::

“Never. I wouldn’t forget” Q assures his creation.

:: Q incapacitated? Contingency? ::

“Jenny, Nish, Jamila and Josh all know about it.”

The glowing amorphous ball on Herbie’s carapace shifting about is a visual indicator means that the AI is considering things. 

:: 007 aware? ::

“No, its a Q-Branch responsibility,” Q clarifies. 

:: Teach 007 ::

:: Please? ::

The humans exchange a look. Q smiles, “Told you you were its favourite.“ Favourite in more than one way. Herbie is making a _choice_ here - to specifically _ask_ for 007 to be included in the contingency plan, it is saying it trusts Bond with its existence - with its wellbeing. 

Q quirks an eyebrow at the agent. As sleepy as he is, Q recognises the significance of Herbie’s request. And perhaps it is his tired brain that finds the opportunity for humour in the situation.

He slowly shifts up to a kneeling position in bed. James follows - sitting up against the headboard, arms crossed, curious to where this is heading. 

Q takes a deep breath, and presents Herbie in his palm like a ring. He frames it like an insipid, cringe-worthy proposal, “James… We’ve been taking care of Herbie together for a while now, and I cant’ imagine anyone else I’d rather be doing this with…” pause for dramatic effect - before finishing with a Bafta worthy crack in his voice, ”James… would you… Would you do us the honour of being part of our mitigation program?” 

A mirthful huff escapes the older man who doesn’t answer straight away, but shakes his head at Q’s antics. 

Poor Herbie takes it entirely the wrong way - it springs off Q’s palm to land on James’ muscular forearm. It holds on tightly, little claws digging into the skin but not quite enough to break through. All three of its beady camera eyes trained on the man’s face. 

:: PLEASE 007? 🥺 ::

:: Pleeeaase? :: Herbie vibrates rhythmically against the human flesh, pleading. 

Q covers his mouth with his hands. He wasn’t expecting the bot’s begging. It was enough to melt anyone’s heart. And James has an especially soft spot for the the bot. 

The shock on James’ face tells Q he wasn’t expecting it either. The man’s face softens and he scoops up Herbie into this palm immediately. He brings the bot to eye level. 

“Yes of course Herbie! Of course!” James soothes the AI quickly, running a thumb along the back of its carapace. 

“I’ll lug the panels up the entire building, through the fire escape if I have to. We can do a drill first thing Monday. How does that sound?”

Herbie takes a few seconds to gauge the honesty of James’ declaration. It must like what its facial recognition algorithms tell it.

:: Agreed :: Herbie is appeased. 

Disaster averted. All is right with the world again. Now that it’s all settled, everyone can go back to bed. 

“Herbie, you want your battery pack?” Q checks with the bot. He’s sure the little bot hadn’t managed to get a good charge before the storm started and it won’t feel safe sitting on the charging pad until the storm is over. 

Herbie wiggles two front legs indicating ‘yes’. Q attaches the cable and places a contented Herbie and the pack on the bedside table before slipping back under the covers. 

They wait till Q is asleep again, his heart and respiratory rate slowing to a steady rhythm - then Herbie flashes the ‘OK’ symbol at James, who then picks up Herbie and the battery pack and places them on his chest. It’s still storming outside. 

He picks up his phone and texts the bot :: What are we watching? ::

It’s their little secret, some nights when Bond is having trouble sleeping, they keep each other company till the wee hours and they watch whatever feed the AI is currently fascinated by. Bond fields all of the AI’s questions as best as he can until he falls asleep. 

:: 007, look ::

Herbie says reverentially. Sent to his phone, the black and white video is slightly grainy, it's from an IR camera feed. The footage shows a den of some sort, there’s hay on the ground and a covered hutch in the corner. All of a sudden movement, an adult cat - a lioness it seems shifts and under her, three little week-old cubs are seen wriggling away. 

:: Baby lion :: Herbie proclaims awed. 

It seems the AI had somehow found out about the observation cameras and tapped into the zoo’s big cat live feed. 

:: Is that what you’ve been watching the last few days? ::

The bot bobs up and down on his chest. 

:: Baby lions scared. Thunder ::

:: Mother lion make better ::

In response, perhaps subconsciously, James places a hand over his heart - right over where Herbie is resting. The bot retreats further into the sheltering hand and snuggles up against the warm palm. Just like the lion cubs against their mother. 

They stay this way till James falls asleep. 

————-----------

As the storm rolls over the city, someone is working unusually late in HQ. Friday night means that there is only a skeleton crew around. 

Hayden growls, utterly frustrated by the layers of security he encounters on the network. He’d assumed it would have been easier with his credentials, but the boffins have done their job well - a hard lesson learnt from the showdown with Silva. 

The data he wants isn’t accessible from his office. And he’s having trouble disabling the traffic monitoring program. If he’s going to get what he needs and make sure it won’t be traced to him, he’ll need to access it directly from the servers.

Hayden packs up the high capacity portable hard drive he has with him and heads to the server room on the other end of the floor. He forgets his ID card and has to backtrack. Despite his office being so close, he rarely spends much time there. Mark, his second usually deals with the data center management. He and the boffins from Q-Branch spend a lot of their time tinkering about in there. 

It takes him two tries to get in, he’d forgotten his security code and had to check his phone. These modern-day protocols are a pain. 

Inside, he has to check the rows of servers for the terminal. Mark and the boffins have moved things around since he last came in here. Probably reconfiguring for efficiency. 

At least he still knows how to get in the system. He plugs in the hard-drive, tucking it away between the racks. He’d underestimated the complexity and sophistication of the Shadow Network’s AI - it’s grown exponentially since the last time he’d taken a look. Impossible for all this to be human programming, this as to be the machine itself that is writing its own code. 

The massive data siphon will take a day or two and he’ll need more than one drive from the looks of it. He’ll have to return later to switch them out. Grunt work, but nothing fifteen million pounds and a seat on the board won’t solve. Is the price of loyalty? Perhaps. 


	5. Sickies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coninuation of the Herbie series. 
> 
> Herbie's sick and Q doesnt know what's wrong.  
> The issue comes to a climax when they fidn out it's more than just a simple bug.

It started last weekend - little things at first, a lag in Herbie’s responses, then stretches of time (seconds) where Herbie becomes unresponsive, then the lags get longer and longer. By the end of the week, Herbie was not just unresponsive but seizing up for minutes at a time. 

Q and the rest of the Q-Branch team were at wit's end trying to diagnose the issue. At first, they were thinking it was a firmware issue caused by a conflict between Herbie’s latest update and the new hardware - but the more he investigated, the more it looked like it was Herbie’s algorithms that were not functioning properly. 

Worse, it was beginning to affect the field Herbies as well - which meant the issue had tipped over into an operational safety problem. By end of the week, they had to temporarily cut off cloud processing, which meant that all the Herbie units now had to solely depend on their inbuilt neural engines to function. The workaround isolated the problem so they remain operational but with less functionality. 

The exercise confirmed the issue was in the servers, an issue at mothership level. Mark had offered to help him out over the weekend, but Q declined - he knew Mark had weekend plans with a girl. 

But as Saturday morning progressed, Q is wondering if he should have asked him to stay. His generosity might mean Herbie would suffer longer. And it wasn’t just Herbie suffering. James, feeling useless and impotent; this was a big brain problem, not a shoot everyone and get away with it problem - was sulky as well. 

As for the AI, it was frustrated and cranky at the issues. Flipping between tantrums and pleading. 

:: Q? Diagnosis? :: The AI asks impatiently. 

:: Herbie malfunction :: Whines in frustration. 

:: Q debug ::

Q feels awful - like a first-time parent with a sick child and he doesn’t know what’s wrong or how to fix it. He can’t make head or tail why the program is freezing this way. Herbie is clearly in distress and the AI trusts him to fix the problem - it’s incredibly frustrating and he feels inadequate.

“I’m sorry Herbie. I’m checking everything.”

:: Q look faster :: Then Herbie seizes again - it was dreadful to watch. Herbie’s legs cramp up and the spiderbot falls over to one side twitching uselessly. 

:: Q ::

:: Help—::

:: Herb—::

“Oh, sweetie…” Q checks Herbie’s status on his screen. The 16-Core neural engine chip in the spiderbot was overclocking dangerously as the AI tries to compensate for the seizures by rerouting. Poor Herbie was hot to the touch. “Herbie stop. You’ll damage your chip this way.”

:: Q ::

:: Q make—::

:: —Herbie better ::

It was heart-wrenching to watch the spasms and hear the AI’s whistling cries. He quickly places the bot on a laptop cooling pad and manually throttles the clockspeed to prevent Herbie from melting its cores. 

It relieves the worse of the symptoms for now. But he still needs to work out the issue. The software seems alright, Q can’t find the program that is causing the crash. One moment the AI would be fine, but the next, it would seize. Perhaps it’s a hardware damage in the servers? A broken cable, or melted motherboards in the data center?

Right, that’s it, if it’s not software, then it has to be hardware - he’ll check every server in the data center if he has to, to fix the problem. He collects his laptop, keycard and a sluggish Herbie. 

“James, I’m headed to the server room. I’m just going to check if it’s a hardware issue upstairs,” Q informs Bond who is watching a football game on the giant monitor set up in the lab to take his mind off a sick Herbie. He knows the man of action isn’t taking being useless very well. 

James turns around, “Anything I can help with?” he already knows the answer is no. He’s made up his mind to swallow his pride and enrol in basic programming classes, perhaps online -just to be of some use in the future. He might turn out to be the oldest student ever enrolled, but if Q and Herbie are going to be permanent fixtures in his life - and he can’t imagine why not, then he needs to at least understand their language. Permanent fixture… hmm, where did that come from? 

“No, it’s alright. Watch the game, hopefully I won’t be too long. I’m taking Herbie with me,” he lets Bond know. He’d get work done much faster if he didn’t have to worry about explaining everything to an anxious James as well. 

———

IT floor is quiet, no one his around. The only IT personnel on duty is upstairs in the Ops Rooms, on call for emergencies. It’s so quiet that he can hear the elevator ping an unexpected arrival on his floor. 

In his darkened office, Hayden pulls up the security feed and scowls - it’s that blasted Quartermaster. 

While IT manages the day to day administration of the data center, they share joint ownership over the Shadow Network so the basement boffins are seen up here regularly. Despite this, what the hell is Q doing here on a Saturday afternoon? The bloody workaholic, no doubt currying favour with M again. 

He watches anxiously as the quartermaster swipes in and disappears into the data center. 

This complicates matters….

———————

The hum of electronics and the smell of ozone welcomes him as he enters the data center. Walking through the data center is like a trek through time. Nearest to the door are the oldest servers dating back to the late nineties. Despite what everyone thinks, he doesn’t actually want to get rid of them. Having a range of equipment from varying periods might be tedious to maintain, but it also reduces the chance of catastrophic failures occurring all at once. 

Some of them were also used as simulation for older equipment still used in banks, hospitals and other government agencies around the world including the UK. They provide real-world test base for their hacking and defensive methods. 

Further in the back were nestled their latest and greatest equipment, some of them bespoke setups housing the brains of the Shadow Network. Fastidiously neat rows of colour coded cables and trunking run along the walls and side into the false flooring. Rows of liquid immersion-cooled servers in enclosed chassis make up the back quarter of the room. 

_This_ is Herbie. The tiny spiderbot in his pocket is just a manifestation of its personality, a conduit through which it interacts with the physical world. 

Most people are creeped out by it, even the IT crowd rarely ventures back here except for Mark. The pulsating glowing blue lights and the steady pump of the circulating liquid cooling system make the place feel eerily organic. 

But not to Q. He feels thoroughly at peace here. He knows the area from the ground up. He chose every aspect of the installation and knows where every cable and wire leads to and what it connects with. He has the schematics of the entire place memorised. 

So when he sees the black cable attached to the terminal and a semi-portable case of RAID drives the size of a small briefcase tucked between the racks, he knows absolutely for sure that it should not be there. 

In a huff, he grabs a nearby workstation on wheels and drops his laptop onto the cart. He immediately checks the terminal, looking for the reason the offensive equipment is there. There is software running in the background. A copy software and to add insult o injury, a commercial one at that. 

When he finds the IT personnel responsible for this, they are going to get a real good bollocking from him. Q knows Shadow Network backups are done automatically by software Mark wrote himself, it was too big a risk to use commercial software, and certainly not onto a removable hard drive like this. 

He retrieves the stacked drive setup wedged between the racks and turns it around, there isn’t an IT or Q-branch asset sticker to indicate that the equipment has been verified and cleared internally for malware or spyware - alarm bells begin to ring inside his head. Hard learned lessons meant that these were one of the basic protocols they instituted and drilled into every IT and Q-Branch personnel. 

Something isn’t right. 

———————

 _Shit, shit, shit._ Hayden watches the video feed of the meddlesome Quartermaster inspecting the briefcase hard drive he’d set up. _He’s so close!_ The download is almost complete. He just needs to stall the annoying younger man and then retrieve the drive without being seen. 

This complication will cost him if he can’t get the drive today. Hayden can’t afford to have Q raise the alarm. The quartermaster would undoubtedly tighten security and check the feeds. He won’t have a second chance to pull this off. 

What he needs is a distraction. One that would catch the overly dedicated Quartermaster’s attention immediately. An emergency in the Q-Labs! 

Hayden accesses the security feeds from Q-Branch, it takes him a few minutes as he’s not familiar with the system. 

Dammit! What the hell is 007 doing in the lab on a weekend as well? The infamous agent seems to shadow the quartermaster wherever he goes. Hayden scoffs, maybe the rumours were true after all, those two are carrying on an affair under Mallory’s nose. 

With 007 there, Hayden thinks twice about remote sabotaging the lab. The last thing he needs is a Double-O getting involved. If anything, Hayden wants to keep the agent in the lab for his own safety. 

The image of a fire extinguisher hanging against a column in the lab suddenly gives him an idea - yes, it just might work. 

\------------

Q double-checks the terminal. He’s got it - the copy software is the root of all of Herbie’s problem. The commercial software can only make a copy of the data is static. But critically, Herbie’s code is dynamic the algorithms constantly evolving either changing or rewritten for efficiency as the AI learns. It is a problem he and Mark encountered early in AI's development. Mark’s custom backup software makes specific accommodations for this so it does not interfere with Herbie’s functioning. 

This commercial software treats the AI’s algorithms like any other data. It was freezing large portions of Herbie’s code so it can make a copy - causing the seizures. 

Q immediately stops the copy and uninstalls the offending software. Then he makes sure to root out any remaining traces of it. He’ll probably to have to run some tests on Herbie first to make sure the software did not break anything else before restoring the AI full access to all their systems. 

Meanwhile, he checks the system log to find out who the _bloody_ _idiot_ was it that did this. The timestamp on the log indicates someone installed this late night a week ago. He can use this to check the security recordings later. 

Unfortunately for Q, the height of the rows and the hum of electronics and liquid cooling pumps hides the sight and drowns out the sound of the fire shutters coming down. He doesn’t notice until the sudden hiss of high-pressure gas being released into the room cuts through the monotonous hum. 

“What the—?” he wonders out loud when he hears it. He peeks around the corner of the row and finally notices the deployed fire shutter doors. Strange, it should be accompanied by a piercing alarm and he would know if it were a routine test of the system. No one does anything involving the data center without informing him first - to do so would be risking his wrath. 

He starts to stride down the corridor, but he’s suddenly feeling lightheaded. _Shit_. 

Q knows all too well what it is, having chosen the system himself. The fire suppressant system is a mixture of inert gasses and carbon dioxide. Designed to very quickly displace atmospheric air and bring the room’s oxygen levels down to below 15% - retarding fire without damaging the delicate electronics all within two minutes. 

But the system is also potentially hazardous to humans. Low oxygen levels can result in loss of consciousness and asphyxiation. He rushes to the shutter door, next to it is an emergency locked in button. It would tell the idiots running this unauthorised drill that they forgot to check if anyone would be trapped inside. 

He slams the button with his palm. Nothing. No flashing lights or loud alarms. 

Again he hits the big red button. Again, nothing. 

Blood drains from his face. FUCK. He contemplates shouting - but it is unlikely anyone would be able to hear him and he’d be expending oxygen that his in low supply. 

_James!_ He needs to contact James. Where is his phone? Not in his pockets. He must have left it in the lab! Q you absent-minded idiot.

His laptop, he can contact the lab through it. Q rushes back to the far end of the room. Though he might have paced himself a little because by the time he reaches the row where the terminal and his laptop is, he’s breathless and keenly feeling the effects of hypoxia. 

Ok, ok— What’s his password for remote access? No not that one. Try this other one; no that’s not it either. What? What do you mean it’s wrong? His fingers feel sluggish - like there is a lag between what he’s thinking and the execution. They don’t fly across the keyboard as usual. 

No, no, no. He thinks as he sinks to his knees and then the ground with his laptop. He’s having trouble thinking, he just needs a rest, the room is spinning. Where is he anyway? Q blinks slowly and then his eyes remain shut.

————————

From atop its perch on the server cabinet, beady eyes watch the curious happenings. Something isn’t right....

\--------------


	6. Comeuppance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Action time. The gang does their bit.

“I’m really sorry about this. I’ll make it up to your brothers… and to you,” he apologies for the fourth time since brunch. 

“Mark—“ she tries to interrupt him. 

“I just know that Q is going to be wracking his brains out trying to fix Herbie, I haven’t seen him this gutted since 007 trashed his fold-wing glider. I have to help him.”

“Mark, it’s fine. I get it. Go help him. I’d be doing the same of I knew how,” Eve meant it. Poor Herbie just wasn’t itself. She missed the bot’s usual cherry beeps and whistles and non-stop curious chatter during its weekly visit. She’s been given the honours of designated babysitter when Q is with M for their weekly one to one updates. 

The listless bot worried her too. Herbie just sat on her desk curled under her palm, moping. She could find nothing to cheer up the pitiful malfunctioning bot. Now and then it would let out a miserable whistle and then snuggle against her palm for comfort. 

“Alright. I’ll call you when we’re done. It might take a while though. You should probably head home.”

Eve waves him away, “Don’t worry about it. Since I’m here I might as well do something productive. Might head down to the range and brush up on my marksmanship.” 

Mark gets out of the car and heads inside while Eve goes to park the car. 

Inside the building, he gives Q a call to see where he’s in the labs or upsets in the data center. 

To his surprise, it’s Bond that answers. “He’s upstairs in the data center. Genius forgot his phone again…” 

Mark can hear the exuberant sounds of a cheering crowd in the background and the voice of a well-known commenter over the noise. Bond must be watching the Chelsea -Liverpool game in the lab, the same game he was supposed to be at with Eve and her family, “Right ok. I’m headed up there now. Thanks.”

————————

He can see why the boffins like this. This might be a misuse of Q-branch equipment… but whatever. The six 86” tv stitched into one giant wall to wall screen almost makes up for not being at the stadium in person. 

The crowd is hushed with anticipation. Jorginho better not miss this penalty. Anything short of a perfect performance, on home ground no less - would see him eviscerated by every pundit on the evening news. 

James leans back on his perch on the edge of the table, feeling the same tremor of anticipation as the crowd. 

Jorginho backs up a few feet, lines up for the kick. The goalie can only brace himself for the inevitable. Jorginho jogs the few steps towards the ball, in the final moment, he switches foot to take the penalty, a risky endeavour—

Abruptly, the monitor switches away from the game. What the—! James leaps to his feet and is about to let out a string of invectives when he registers what the monitors are displaying. Each monitor shows a different angle from a series of security cameras.

Movement in one of the monitors, he sees Q rushing past, down a corridor in what appears to be the data center. He disappears out of view and reappears again at row G - heading straight for his laptop on a cart, his demeanour strangely panicked. 

He watches Q type something out on his laptop, seconds later, Bond’s phone pings with a message. It’s somewhat disjointed, something about a fire shutter and oxygen levels. James is typing out a reply when he sees Q sway bracing himself on the cart, then drop to his knees and slump onto the floor. 

Shit! Penalty shootout completely forgotten he high tails it out of the control center. He’s at the main doors in an instant and nearly runs smack face-first into the thick glass doors. 

The bloody things didn’t slide open like they usually do. Come to think of it, the entrance hadn’t lit up automatically either. The keypad next to the door is dark as well. No power to this section of the labs. What is going on?

James contemplates his options. His first instinct is to break the glass, to finds something large and heavy to throw at it - blunt instrument indeed. But then he remembers the doors were made out of four layers of ballistic grade glass interlayered with thermoplastic polyurethane, nothing short of several hand grenades would do it any real damage. Damned boffins and their security measures. 

A fire escape then. Or the stairs to the lower labs, maybe there is power there. He turns around - only to be startled nearly out of his skin by the tableau before him. 

Every drone, spiderbot, lab-bot, predator bot in all states of assembly/disassembly in the lab were swarmed around him shifting restlessly around his feet - like a miserable zombie cast of robots. A half-finished prototype sentinel drone was hovering determinedly at chest level even if it was listing unsteadily to one side. 

A printer goes off in the bullpen where there is still power. Bond catches the sheet of paper just as it slips from the tray. 

:: Ultracapacitor in DB11. Go 007 :: the message on paper reads. 

James doesn’t ask for clarification, he just runs to the back of the lab, where the unfinished DB11 is sitting on blocks. A larger lab assistant bot follows him and points to the small box on the work table. He grabs it and the wire leads next to it. 

Back a the door, the remaining bots have already pried open the electrical panel covers for the sliding door for him. James skids to his knees with the ultracapacitor battery in front of the opening. He looks to the bots, “Alright children, now what??”

Sooty, the large lab spider bot - named that on account of its slightly charred rear end from an unfortunate but minor lab accident, pokes him in the thigh with a rubberised leg and points to the connector that it wants James to attach the capacitor to. 

He does as he’s told. Once he completes the connection, the area lights up and the doors slide back smoothly. 

James bolts out of there and hurls himself into the open lift waiting for him. The doors slide shut and the lift starts moving even before he has time to remember which floor the data center is located on. 

——————

Mark grabs the packet of crisps from the collection bin of the vending machine located at the entrance of the closed cafeteria on the fifth floor. If he’s going to be of any use, he needs some serious caloric input first. He’s usually at his problem-solving best when he’s running on junk food. 

The slow methodical sound of a vacuum cleaner catches his attention. He looks around, it’s one of those automated floor cleaning bots roaming the empty halls going about its business. Having determined the source of the sound, he pays it no further attention and moves on to the drinks machine. He needs a fortifying caffeine and sugar formulation to sustain him, and he’s sure Q would like one too. 

He peruses the selection - yes that one will do. The card is poised in between his fingers just about ready to swipe on the card reader when he’s jostled rudely in the side by something. 

He turns to look - its the bloody floor cleaner bot. The four-foot tall moving pillar of metal and plastic bumps against him again. 

“Hey! Stop that. What the hell? Are you broken?” he says to the machine, not expecting an answer. It’s supposed to have sensors that stop it running into things. 

Again the robot runs into him. Mark backs off, getting out of its way. But instead of resuming with its duties, it turns to follow him. 

“Uh…,” Mark doesn’t know what else to do other than slowly back away again. The robot picks up speed, heading straight for him. 

“Ahh!” Mark yelps. He’s being chased by a cleaner bot! What the hell is going on? He turns and jogs away - the bloody thing is still coming for him. 

Out in the open lobby, is met another cleaner bot. This one is a floor washer and polisher. They come at him from both sides - not particularly menacing, but singleminded nevertheless. He skids to a halt and backs away again in another direction. If they start beeping EXTERMINATE, he’s going to head for the stairs. See how well they do on that!

Behind him, a soft unobtrusive ping signals the arrival of a lift. He hadn’t even noticed he’d been backed towards the lift banks. The robots stop in front of him just as the lift doors open. 

Ah, so not so much chased but herded. Mark does as he is told, and gets into the lift. It’s starting to make some sense now. They only entity that could have timed all of this so precisely he’s sure was an AI - and he only knows one personally.

————————

The lift spits him out about the same time as Bond arrives on the IT floor. 

“Bond, do you know what’s going on— ack!” Mark yelps as 007 grabs him by the bicep and pulls him along. 

“Q’s unconscious inside the data center,” Bond tells him urgently. 

“What? How?” Mark sputters confused. He’d come to help debug a sick AI and it has now somehow turned into a human emergency? 

He swipes them both into the data center. But as soon as the doors open, he sees the problem. The fire shutter is down, blocking their entry. The light on the wall indicates the fire suppressant system is turned on. 

——————

Hayden ducks under a desk in the IT office as the two men pass outside, heading straight for the server room. His second, Mark Trent is with 007. How had this supposedly quiet day off turned into an office gathering? 

No matter… he’d managed to retrieve the hard drives after the quartermaster passed out. The black case resting by his feet is his ticket to a lifestyle that wouldn’t have otherwise been available to him on his government pension. 

He’d nearly succumbed to the effects himself as he darted inside. Stepping over the unconscious body of the young quartermaster, he felt no guilt. Only relief that the meddlesome boffin hadn’t yet managed to erase the all-important drive. 

While he was in there, a small object crawling out of the quartermaster’s pocket interested him. One of those small spy spiderbots that Q-Branch was always going on about. He’d never paid them much attention and the only thing he knew about them is that they were partially controlled by the Shadow network AI to provide reconnaissance backup to the operatives. It gobbled up enormous amounts of memory space that much he knew - one of the reasons they had to expand the data center to the size it is today. He resented those things for that, he saw the move as a threat to his authority - Q’s way of undermining him and one day usurping the position as IT Head. 

The greedy manipulative bastard deserved this. Hayden thought viciously. Everyone was so taken by the beguiling young genius when he first started at SIS nearly a decade ago. It was Mansfield who recruited him from some seedy business with a hacker group, details of which were still classified. Hayden was sure she’d meant to train the young man up to replace him one day. 

Silva’s attack and Mansfield’s sudden death meant a reprieve for Hayden who was sure she was planning his early retirement then. Well, all that’s the past now. He just wanted his money and be rid of this place. 

On a whim, he’d picked up the little crawling robot and pocketed it. Maybe he could throw it in as a gift for his benefactor - an apology for not succeeding in getting all the data they wanted. 

All that remains now was to wipe any evidence of his involvement and get the hell of the building without being caught with the drives. Hayden tightens his grip around the handle of the black case, bracing himself. 

As soon as he sees the two men disappear inside, he makes a silent run for the stairs next to the lifts. He’ll take the lifts once he’s next floor down so as not to be seen loitering on the IT floor. 

None too soon. Hayden disappears into the stairwell, the door clicking shut unnoticed, just as Mark reappears from inside the data center. 

—————————

James goes for the bottom of the shutter immediately, muscles straining as he tries to lift it. Mark knows better, those doors were meant to keep the inert fire suppressant gases inside and oxygen out so it’s sealed tight. 

“You won’t get it open this way! Someone’s tripped the system. I’ll try to reset it!” Mark tells him and rushes out again. He needs to get to a computer. 

Mark pelts down the corridor, Converse sneakers squeaking loudly against the floor tiles all the way to the IT offices. 

————————

Eve drops the car keys into her handbag after she locks the car. Mark owes her, and not just for this, but he owes her a tenner for the game as well. On this rare occasion, Chelsea’s default penalty taker, Jorginho missed his shot. The home crowd is devastated and close to instigating a riot. The poor fellow is going to be coping death threats for the foreseeable future until he can make up for this blunder. 

She chuckles a little. Her brothers must be having a fantastically wild time at the game. Maybe it was a good thing Mark is sitting this one out. If there really were to be a riot, she’s not entirely sure her brothers won’t be right in the thick of things. They can be so rambunctious at times. 

The whine of electric motors interrupts her leisurely walk through the parking garage. One of the security patrol bots siddle up next to her. The sudden short burst of a whooping alarm gives her a fright. 

“What the hell??!” she yells at the robot, leaping away from it. It should have recognised her! Eve starts to reach for the ID badge so it can read the RFID tag on it. 

:: Eve. Help Herbie ::

:: Stop Hayden ::

The screen on the ‘face’ of the robot reads. 

“What? Hayden? As in Timothy Hayden? As in the Head of IT?”

:: YES ::

:: Eve GO ::

The robot whoops at her again, urging her to hurry along. 

“Yes OK! Where is he?” She’s not entirely sure what is going on, but if Herbie insists, she’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. 

The robot’s face morphs :: Lobby - middle lift :: 

Eve nods and makes a run for it. 

————————

“YES!” Mark punches the air as the fire system starts to reset. The valve for the gas tanks shut off and the vents start to pull the gasses out of the data center. He locates the virtual switch for the shutters and they begin retracting immediately. 

Waiting just outside the shutter door is James, bouncing impatiently on his heels for the door to retract far enough so he can slide under and into the room beyond. 

When he finally gets to Q, he braces for the worst and hopes for the best. The young quartermaster is still unconscious on the floor amongst his creation. Bond picks him up into a fireman’s carry over his shoulder. 

By the time he gets to back to the door, the shutter is entirely retracted and he can exit with Q to the corridor. Mark skids to a stop just as he lowers a limp Q gently down onto the floor. 

“Oxygen mask!” Mark snaps his fingers and points over 007’s shoulders. Mark recalls the fire drill from months ago. The oxygen mask is located just outside the data center room door specifically for accidental emergencies like these. 

Bond breaks the glass and pulls it out. They fit the mask over Q in seconds. He’s breathing, that much is a relief. Bond pulls up Q’s jumper sleeve to get to his watch. He activates the blood oxygen meter app and waits for the result. 

They watch as the readings climb higher by the seconds. Finally, Q’s eyelids flutter open. The first word out of his mouth is, “Herbie…”

“Ssshh.. you’re alright. We’ve got you,” James soothes a groggy Q, combing his fingers through the mass of soft waves to smooth Q’s hair back from his forehead.

“No... you don’t understand. Hayden’s got Herbie. I saw him. At least I think I saw him,” Q blurts out. 

“Timothy Hayden? My boss?” Mark scowls confused. What is he doing here on a weekend? The man doesn’t do overtime unless it suits him to be seen doing it. 

Q grabs hold of his rescuers around the lapels to pull himself up to a sitting position, “Yes!” he spits out breathlessly. “There was a RAID setup plugged into Shadow Network server. It was copying massive amounts of data. It’s the reason Herbie was freezing.”

“What’s he doing making copies of the--,” Mark trails off at the twin quelling looks he receives from Q and Bond. “Owwwhhh...” he realises the implications. He’s still having trouble believing it. Sure Hayden is an asshole at the best of times, but we’re talking high treason here. 

*Bing* *Bing* *Bing* 

A lift down the corridor keeps announcing its arrival, the doors opening and closing repetitively as if to get their attention. The three men look at each other. They all come to the same conclusion at the same time. 

“GO!” Q pushes Bond away from him. James doesn’t need further permission. It’s the second time he hurls himself into an open lift today. 

————————————

“Q! What are you doing?” Mark cries in alarm as his colleague tries to get back up on his feet. 

“The AI. I’ve uninstalled the copy software. It should have fixed the problem. We need to restore full access,” Q braces himself again the wall, testing his balance. 

“Are you sure? We haven’t tested the fix yet,” Mark crowds around him, ready to lend a shoulder should Q start to collapse. 

But Q seems to have recovered, “I’m positive, come on!”

The two boffins rush to back into the data center, splitting up midway. Q dives for the terminal in Row G again while Mark goes to find the connection they unplugged earlier in the week.

The identical rows of servers have him confused, he’s darting between rows to find the right one, “Which row was it again!?”

“Row F!” 

Oh yes… Mark skids to a stop at Row F. Row F… cabinet 7. Ah - there it is, the unplugged cables tied neatly to one side. Mark picks them up and looks at the wall of servers with their honeycomb of empty ports. Now was it the blue to port 3 or the red? He needs his tablet. Why didn’t he label the cables…

Have faith in yourself Mark. Well, here goes. He plugs them in. 

“Done?” Q calls out impatiently. 

“Yes!” 

Q enters the few keystrokes needed to switch on cloud computing, striking the enter button with finality. He waits… ten seconds… twenty seconds… 

Nothing. 

“Mark! It’s not doing anything! What's wrong?”

“Give me a sec,” Mark checks the cables again, yes he’s sure they’re connected to the right ports.

“Mark!” Q barks at him again. 

“Yes alright… hold on.” He can't think of anything else to do other than… to turn it OFF and turn it ON again. He rests his thumb on the switch, braces himself and flicks the power button off. Then he counts to thirty whilst holding his breath and flicks it on again. 

The lights glow for a few seconds and then starts to blink wildly. Then one by one the adjacent servers start doing the same until the entire section is aglow - indicating the central computing of the AI is back to full throttle. The temperature in the room starts to climb perceptibly, cooling fans whirring to life. 

Next, the liquid cooling pumps grow louder - the giant heart of the beast beating faster. It feels like a dragon rousing, waking from a coma. The vibration makes it feel like they were standing on the belly of the dragon

Q appears round the corner. Mark grins at him, he feels completely justified in saying, “See? I always tell everyone, turning it off and on again solves the problem 99% of the time.”

————————————

His shoulder connects painfully against the back wall of the lift. He’d thrown himself in as soon as it arrived. His heart is hammering wildly in his chest. All that running around with the heavy case is not something he does regularly. At his age, he should be taking it easy, not playing hide and seek with his employee and a spy. Before going for the lifts, he’d rushed down the fire escape and nearly twisted an ankle in the process. 

Hayden punches the button for the basement carpark, then rests the case on the floor to catch his breath. Almost done, he’ll be more than happy to be rid of this affair as soon as the exchange is done. 

Belatedly he realises something amiss. The lift is in motion but int he wrong direction. It’s raising instead of descending. _Fuck_. Someone upstairs must have called for the lift, but didn’t he get on the one going down? 

He goes for the button again, this time for a button several floors above the one the lift is currently passing - hoping to get off there before whoever is it upstairs gets on and sees him. He’d disabled the recording system for the security camera’s in this section of the building. They will be no proof that he was there unless someone sees him and testifies to it. 

Suddenly the lift jolts to a violent halt. _Shit shit shit._

Sweat beads on his upper lip and forehead. But the doors don’t open. Long seconds go by, no one gets on. _Fuck this shit._ He’s taking the stairs, it's safer - he decides. 

He presses the OPEN button and waits for the doors to open. Nothing. 

Again he punches the button impatiently. Nothing happens.

He tries for the basement garage again in hopes that it would do something. Zilch. 

Desperate now, Hayden goes to try prying the doors open. He wedges his meaty fingers into the crack between he tightly shut doors. 

The lift drops. It drops several feet - pauses. And then drops again, this time several floors. It slams to a halt, emergency breaks outside the lift car squealing. 

Just his luck! A malfunctioning lift on the day he needs to actually get something done. Fuck the government austerity measures. The bloody agency can't even maintain the lifts in functioning order. 

The lift lurches again, this time accelerating upwards faster than he’d ever experienced all the way to the top floor. Hayden isn’t sure which he dreads more, the doors opening and someone seeing him or not being able to get out of this blasted lift!

A tense moment goes by, he can hear metallic clanging above and below him in the lift shute, like winches being tightened ominously - its almost as if the building was teasing him. Hayden is drenched in sweat by now, dread overcoming his logic. 

Then as if a cable was cut loose, the lights cut out and the whole car plunges unhindered. Hayden SCREAMS. 

——————

The lift doors open at lobby level. Eve gets off and waits for instructions - prepared for whatever form they might come in. 

Two cleaning robots are there to greet and herd her towards the other set of lifts on the other side of the building. 

“I’m going. I’m going!” She tells the robot when it nudges her ankle to prompt her to speed up. 

Once on the other side, she waits. A lift opens and out pours a mass of much more sophisticated robots. These more familiar to her. All the larger Herbie bots including the terrifying predators skitter about the marble lobby. They’ve never been seen up here - secret projects don’t tend to wander themselves out the labs for public viewing.

But the motley crew isn’t at their show best. An unfinished flying drone exits last, zooming past and crashing into the opposite wall before righting itself again. One of the predator bots is missing three legs and limping unsteadily. The other one missing an ‘eye’, the camera dangling from a wire-like a macabre eyeball. And the other lab-bots have rubberised safety feet and have a PIXA-like quality to them, utterly non-threatening. These are her reinforcements - it would be comical if the situation didn’t seem so urgent. 

The bots regroup and gather around her, surrounding the door to the middle lift. Eve takes her cue from that- well then, this must be where Hayden is going to come through. She too faces the lift. Unlike the operatives, she’s not cleared to carry a weapon with her at all times - so this will have to be done the old fashioned way. No problem.

Eve cracks her fists and squares her shoulders. There’s a terrible noise of screeching metal coming from inside the lift well. She turns to the broken predators flanking her, “Ready guys?”

——————————

The SIS building isn’t tall enough for free-fall. But the repeated rising and falling is arguably even more terrifying. By the third repetition, Hayden is well and truly shaken and stirred. 

He’s shaking all over and it feels like his bowels might let loose at any moment. He’s badly bruised in the shins as well. The heavy unyielding and unsecured RAID case was left to rattle about during the fall. 

_Please stop. Please stop! No more._ Any moment now, the lift might crash into the basement. 

But that moment never comes. The lift slams to a juddering halt and stays that way for agonising minutes. The lights flicker back on and the lift ascends - slowly, normally this time. 

Perhaps it was a malfunction after all, and not haunted as he’d come to the ridiculous conclusion in his petrified haze. Hayden collects himself, dry swallowing. He scrambles for the case, picking it up and clutching it to his chest. 

The lift bings pleasantly announcing his arrival at the lobby. 

——————————

The doors slide back, revealing an awful sight. Hayden is drenched in sweat, pale as a sheet and utterly rattled. Yet his fingers still have the strength to clutch a black case to his chest like his life depended on it. She doesn’t know what the hell is going on here but it’s pretty clear the contents of the case has something to do with all this. 

“What’s in the case?” Eve demands gruffly, eyes narrowing. She’d omitted the honorific ‘sir’ - it doesn’t feel like he deserves it this time. 

Hayden looks like a man caught red-handed. His eyes go wide and for the first time since she’s known him - stripped of all his arrogance and bluster, he looks like the person he really is inside; an insecure terrified prick who is out of his depth. 

But Hayden isn't going to give up just yet. Cornered and desperate, his instinct is now to escape. He throws the heavy case towards Eve’s face. 

Eve braces for impact, shielding herself with her forearms. The case knocks her off her feet and falls tot eh floor. The impact flattens a lab-bot that didn’t manage to get out of its way in time. 

Hayden rushes out, barrelling over the predator bots to pick up the case. Eve rolls back onto her feet in the next instant. She tries to go for him again. 

The case swings in wild arcs around him as Hayden wields it like a blunt weapon. Eve can’t get close at this rate. So she drops to the ground and kicks out with her legs to trip him. 

It works. Hayden’s feet get tangled up in her legs and he comes tumbling down - the case goes skidding into the main lobby area. Eve springs for it, intending if nothing else, to put as much distance between the case and Hayden. 

She doesn’t even try subduing him - Hayden might not be trained, but he is by no means a small weaselly man. Six feet tall and slightly portly, he can still do her some damage if she is not careful. 

Behind her, Hayden screams as the bots swarms over him. It echoes through the empty marble lobby. 

—————————

 _What the hell are these blasted things?_ Hayden thinks as he kicks and flails blindly. _Fucking Q-Branch rejects!_

Somehow in the struggle, he managed to grab hold of one of the bots by its remaining legs and fling it away from him. That turns the tide in his struggle. One by one he picks them off him. The damaged rejects lose their grip on him. 

He turns over and climbs back up to his feet. _Where is the blasted case!?_

Hayden looks around. He sees Eve with the case also just getting to her feet. He lunges at her. She manages to connect her foot to his stomach, sending him staggering back. 

If he doesn’t get the case back, all this will be for nothing! 

A fancy metal trash bin beside the lifts provide him with an improvised weapon. He grabs the heavy metal cover by the opening and rips it off the bin. Now he has a shield and a weapon that he can swing around. 

The pathetic sentinel drone dives bomb him like a magpie in spring. Hayden swings his weapon and catches the mostly plastic drone square on its second pass. The drone shatters, raining plastic parts around him. 

Eve wisely backs away with the case. _Not so tough now are we, missy?_ Hayden sneers internally. He never liked M’s secretary either. She’d never warmed up to him, quite the opposite. Her comments to him were always veiled but bordered on insubordination. 

“Give. Me. The case,” Hayden demands in a tone that suggested he would accept nothing but obedience. 

“Yeah… no,” She replies flippantly. 

“Miss Moneypenny. If you don’t do as I say, I will have you brought in for attempting to steal government IP.”

“Really? Is that what’s inside?” She’s genuinely intrigued. Herbie didn’t say anything about data theft. “So what are you doing with it?”

“I’m Head of IT!” he bellows, as if it was all the explanation needed. 

“All the same sir, I think I’ll keep it - let's see what M has to say about this,” she retorts cheekily shaking the case a little.

Hayden is past his patience now. With a great heave, he swings the metal bin cover at her - but he’s too slow. Eve makes a run for it with the case. He goes after her. 

She darts for the other end of the building, hoping that Herbie has a plan or she’s going to make for the stairs. Her flats don’t have much grip on the polished marble and she skids as she attempts to make a sharp 90 degree turn around the corner. 

Once she’s regained her footing, she sees Bond waiting around the corner holding a large decorative urn that usually sat by the memorial wall. She ducks, landing on her right hip and letting the momentum slide her under the bin and past Bond. 

Hayden appears a second later and Bond swings the bin and catches the man square in the chest. Hayden goes down again - the wind knocked out of him this time. The heavy metal bin clangs loudly against the floor, chipping away bits of marble along the way. M is not going to be happy about that. 

Bond kicks the metal disc out of his hand, disarming him and draws his Walther on the gasping man. He has on an expression that says he’s thoroughly fed up by the whole fracas and just wants it to end. 

“Are we quite done here?” Bond asks cooly. He’d gladly shoot the asshole if he tries to make a run for it. This man had made everyone’s week miserable, endangered the lives his entire family in the short span of an afternoon and is trying to abscond with a classified government project. Secretly he’s wishing Hayden _would_ try to escape. He’d finally have someone to shoot on behalf of all their frustrations. Really, he wouldn’t mind a medal for restraint. 

To his disappointment, Hayden just lies there gasping and wheezing like a stranded goldfish. From out of his pocket crawls out a small object. It zig-zags unsteadily on the marble floor for, the screen on its carapace flickering to life. Once fully switched on, the little spiderbot toddles away from Hayden and hops onto Eve’s jean cuff and hauls itself up her leg.

Eve plucks Herbie off her clothes and places it on her shoulder. The little bot starts whistling and beeping - cussing up a storm if the tone and the angry emojis flashing across the screen on its shell is anything to go by. Herbie gesticulates wildly at Hayden and vibrates with the force of its outrage - literally hopping mad. 

“Mmm-huh… did he now? Oh really? How awful… “ Eve tuts sympathetically, responding to Herbie’s litany of complaints against the man. 

Hayden finally manages to roll over and push himself up to a sitting position, face still red from panting. “I’ll have all your heads!” he hisses between wheezes, then abruptly he smiles. 

“I knew you’d turn double agent at some point Bond,” Hayden starts. Then he looks at Eve, “But you, M’s secretary no lees - his accomplice within?” Hayden reveals a toothy grin, his teeth stained red, he must have cut the inside of his mouth during his ordeal. 

Eve steals a quick look at Bond, but the agent gives away nothing. “What are you playing at?” she scowls at Hayden. Has he lost his mind? 

“Fortunately I was working and attempted to stop both of you making away with the data.” 

“We caught you red-handed,” Eve counters.

“Some evidence might be in order?” he jerks his chin at the case Eve is clinging tightly to,” Who is holding the case? Your words against mine.”

“We have you on cam—“

“—He’s disabled the security cameras,” Bond cuts her off, realising why the bastard was so smug. 

Behind them, the lift doors ping, admitting Q and Mark into the lobby. 

“Well, well… Looks like the gang’s all here. Your robots attacked the wrong person, quartermaster. If it cannot distinguish between an SIS HOD and legitimate targets, this program of yours is an unacceptable operational risk. I’ll have it scrapped immediately. I’ll take a sledgehammer to the servers myself if I have to,” Hayden declares cruelly. 

“You bastard!” Q tries to lunge at him, but Mark holds him back by the sleeve. 

There is movement outside the building, people coming in through the side door. 

Bond tucks the gun away.

“Sir?” Turns out, they were the security guards. “There was an alarm for someone trapped in the lift.” 

Hayden seizes the moment to go for a Bafta, “They were trying to steal data off our servers!” He bellows at the guards. “The case! Don’t let them leave with it!”

The guards look confused, but one of them reaches for his weapon. This could go badly. But before it does, Sgt. Barry Whittmore the shift supervisor appears. “Really mate? You couldn’t have waited till the last penalty?” He sounds completely put out. 

“James? What is this all about?” Barry doesn’t seem too fussed waiting for the man he’s on a first-name basis with to answer. 

Bond just mouths the word ‘brig’ and points at Hayden. The Brig was the colloquial name for Dr Epstein’s psych evaluation room - because most people feel like they are being interrogated in there. 

Barry takes it at face value. “Right then, take him to the brig,” he tells his men. 

They haul Timothy Hayden to his feet. The man goes apoplectic, ”Let go of me! It’s them. You’ll be aiding and abetting treason!” He struggles against the men and they have to pin him to the wall to put cuffs on. 

“Come now sir, if you’ll just go quietly, we won’t have put those on,” Barry says it all friendly. Hayden is dragged kicking and screaming to a side door that Barry came through. 

They wait until the man’s screams can no longer be heard. 

“He’s right you know, if the cameras have been disabled, we don’t have evidence. He can accuse us of collaborating,” Eve points out. 

“Huh, have the camera’s been turned off?” Barry ponders pointedly, “Ahh.. so someone or _something_ must have sent the footage to the monitors at my station.” He quirks an eyebrow at Herbie still resting on Eve’s shoulders. 

:: Gollum saw. Gollum see all :: Herbie tells them very pleased.

Technically, Barry isn't supposed to know about the AI - but the man has seen the Q-branch robots roaming the halls from time to time. Most people just regard them as slightly more advanced Roomba’s, but Barry knows there’s more to it than that. He’d made friends with one of them during his solitary patrols inside the building. 

Gollum the moody lab-bot loves lurking around the dark secluded corners of HQ. The server room is one of its usual haunts. 

Dubbed Gollum by Q-Branch, it is imbued with its moodier, more rebellious side of Herbie’s personality. The Yin to Herbie’s Yang. Infuriatingly like a cat, Gollum doesn’t always sync with the cloud server even when they tell it to, and shows up for work in the lab only when it deigns to. Instead of a resident stray cat, they had a resident independent robot. 

Today it was lounging in the server room when Q entered. It saw the whole thing unfold. It watched as Hayden callously stepped over an unconscious Q to retrieve his RAID setup. It watched Hayden pickup and pocket Herbie. And most crucially it ‘remembered’ everything. 

Gollum alerted Bond and the rest of the robots. It took over the lift control mechanism before the Shadow Network came back fully online. And it told the guards and Barry to come. 

“These walls must have eyes as well as ears. Well, I best be off to welcome our guest. Miss Moneypenny, would you mind informing M of the situation? I’d loathe to bother him on a weekend,” Barry weasels out of of the difficult phone call with a charming smile. The grizzled old guard then disappears. 

James finally gets to relax if only until M gets here and then they’ll be in for a weekend of statements, and interrogations. But at least he gets to reassure himself that Q and Herbie are alright. Eve plops Herbie onto Q’s crazy mass of wavy hair and the bot clings to it like a baby koala on its mothers back. 

James loops an arm around Q’s waist to pull him into a hug. He buries a hand into Q’s hair and gives his scalp a good scratch and petting Herbie at the same time. 

“How are you feeling? Alright?” he asks intimately. It doesn’t look like there will be permanent damage from the ordeal. 

Q ignores the question only to ask with no small amount of incredulity, “We have a brig??” James just smiles indulgently at him. 

“And you two! Since when?” Q wriggles out of James’ grasp to point an accusatory finger at Mark and Eve. 

\-----THE END-----


End file.
